Research Seminar Series 2024

Time: 4-5 pm, Friday 5 April

Location: 12SW 558 or via Zoom:  https://macquarie.zoom.us/j/88546604589?pwd=cFVqbmdCb2hvT04yRTliN1B6VVJtUT09 Password: 798325

Linguistic relativity and translation

James McElvenny (Universität Siegen)

Abstract

In contemporary scholarship, linguistic relativity is generally treated as a problem of individual psychology, to be investigated through experiments targeting the cognitive processes inside the heads of single speakers of a language. But overcoming the differences in semantics and world view that exist between languages is also a practical problem that translators face every day. In the history of research into linguistic relativity, this practical perspective has always been present; it is only since the mid20th century that the individualising cognitive dimension has come to the fore and obscured other approaches. In this talk, I will look at the historical background to linguistic relativity and show how the questions it raises could be addressed within the framework of translation studies.

Bio

Dr James McElvenny is a linguist and intellectual historian at the University of Siegen, Germany. His latest books are A History of Modern Linguistics (2024) and Language and Meaning in the Age of Modernism (2018). He presents the History and Philosophy of the Language Sciences podcast.